


as we look to the sky

by birdsandivory



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, First Love, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Porn with Feelings, Post-Time Skip, Praise Kink, Pre-Time Skip, Riding, Slow Romance, Strangers to Lovers, please enjoy my yuriashe love letter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29270559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdsandivory/pseuds/birdsandivory
Summary: “Thank you,” Ashe calls, satisfied when the door stutters to a stop. “For saving me again.”Yuri looks back at him this time. And the moment is like the world ceasing to turn on its axis. It’s the stars twinkling into existence in the same exact spot every night. An arrow being released from a perfectly strung bow in visible motion—its beginning and end determined by arithmetical calculation—hitting its target every time.The one right answer to everything....Sometimes Ashe wonders how many times a person can fall in love before they understand they won’t be loved back.Ashe and Yuri, through the years.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert & Dedue Molinaro, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc, Caspar von Bergliez & Linhardt von Hevring, Hapi & Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Ashe Big Bang





	as we look to the sky

**Author's Note:**

> finally! after five hundred insanely stressful years, i bring you: the love and life of yuriashe. 
> 
> this is essentially my love letter to this ship, okay. we were done a great social support injustice, so i have taken it upon myself to learn how to cook up ashe's soft sunshine boy personality and feed everyone here the interactions we need and deserve. i can't begin to tell you how much i love and adore ashe and yuri, and how i really think they need their time to shine, so when the ashe big bang sign-ups came around and i saw my opportunity, i immediately took it. 
> 
> there is one more chapter to this fic that i hope to upload soon, so please hang tight! and remember to enjoy [THIS](https://twitter.com/nikobynight/status/1359623177333207040) beautiful art done by my big bang partner, [oliver](https://twitter.com/nikobynight). he's an amazing person to work with, extremely talented and endlessly patient, so please be sure to show him some love!!!
> 
> also, a big thank you to [kay](https://twitter.com/kayisdreaming), [omer](https://twitter.com/yahabooty), [manda](https://twitter.com/amirah_leigh), and [silv](https://twitter.com/SilverdriftXIII) for beta-reading, giving me input, and supporting me!

*******

**Harpstring Moon 1180**

Ashe... has never seen anything _like_ Abyss. 

When Ashe first arrived at Garreg Mach, something about its long halls and stone walls made it feel like it belonged to the very beginning of the world. Like it carried enchanting, otherworldly secrets in its bones despite all of the open windows shedding light upon every shadow cast. He knew it would be shrouded in mystery, filled with things he couldn’t hope to understand in his lifetime—no matter how hard he tried. 

But this is something else entirely.

Something of a whole village hidden in its depths—not just holy text and stories where the truth is only known by the left-behind artifacts that survived them—but _dozens_ of living, breathing individuals existing down below... 

It’s closer to unbelievable than the truth. 

And to think that they’re all people who are condemned by the outside world: poor and hopeless, distrusting and angry. Pitiful and painful and everything in between. 

He sympathizes with them to the farthest degree, remembers what it was like to beg and steal on the city streets. Wonders if, had Lord Lonato not taken them in, he would’ve been lucky enough to find refuge with his brother and sister here.

Ashe couldn’t imagine living that life again.

Despite the people’s impressive need for survival, Abyss is still very sad.

It’s a forgotten place, and just looking around, Ashe questions whether or not the Goddess has forsaken her children here. If she’s truly decided that, after all their hardship, they don’t deserve her warmth or her love. He once believed that she was a knight herself, that she saved people—saved _him_. And brought him to Lonato so that, even though he’d lived so lowly a life, stealing and taking up space, he and his siblings could _belong_ somewhere. 

But even those named soldiers, who follow the Goddess’s every commandment, call the people down below rats. _Nothing exists but the sewers to those who aren’t willing to look._

If that's what it means to serve the knights, then Ashe wonders if he's anything like them after all. 

Abyss is more than the shadows it’s made of; there’s value here. Something dark and intensive and special.

Like _him._

Staring into the depraved darkness that is Abyss, he sees that there are places even the Goddess refuses to shed her light. 

But he also sees that, even though the sun does not reach this place, a single blossom has managed to persevere.

Yuri is his name—the leader of a fourth house no one would’ve ever known about if not for the professor’s determination to unearth the secrets of Abyss. Down here in the shadows, he’s the one everybody flocks to; the solver of their problems, the protector of their people. 

Ashe’s eyes follow the subtle curve of a spine, soft purple strands of hair spilling over a tasseled shoulder, and he thinks: _Even more than that._

A flower blooming in the darkness. 

At least, that’s what Yuri seems like to him. 

He’s a spot of color surrounded in the blackness of the underworld that commands the shadows like he’s the king himself. So far, Yuri has an answer for everything, a playful jab, and a last word. There’s a way about him that makes Yuri seem unlike any other. Ashe is bewitched by him.

His beauty is as great as his mystery, and his hair is the color of violets in late winter. And try as he might not, Ashe has been mentally waxing poetic about Yuri since he first laid eyes on him, now older and much more rogue-ish than who he was as Count Rowe’s adopted son. 

Ashe isn’t sure Yuri’s noticed that he’s Lonato’s charge himself. Or that they’ve even seen each other in passing before. But Ashe guesses the more pressing question would be why Yuri’s abandoned his house in the first place. 

Not that he would get an answer if he asked. Yuri wouldn't even take a second glance at Ashe after he promised he would do everything he could to get him back home. 

“We’ll head out to the chasm in a couple of hours.” 

The sound of the professor’s voice is a rush of cool water, wakes Ashe from his daydreams and reminds him what they’re here for. 

“Be prepared for anything,” he stresses.

Ashe is never prepared for battle. He’s not sure he ever will be. 

Everyone else is so determined, so ready to head into the thick of it, but he’s not so sure he could do it himself. More than anything, he wants to be useful and protect those who can’t protect themselves but... that doesn’t mean he isn’t worried he won’t measure up. 

His eyes flit back over to Yuri, who can’t be much older than him, but holds a sword like he’s been doing it his whole life. The look on his face is fierce and unafraid, and Ashe thinks he must be as fearless as he seems. He’s already so much, it’s overwhelming; like Dimitri or Edelgard or Claude. He’s so much.

Spirited.

Strong. 

_Sure._

Like the Goddess needn’t exist in Abyss if he’s here. 

“What are you looking at?” Yuri asks—sharp, exasperated, and Ashe is so stricken by his effortlessly powerful expression that he can’t help but withdraw as he grips his bow. He bows his head, looks away. 

“N-Nothing.”

Yuri seems satisfied with that, doesn’t say anything more for the rest of their time in the dusty marketplace of Abyss. 

And Ashe, with all of his quiet curiosity, can’t stop himself from looking back up the moment Yuri turns away.

—0—0—0—

**Garland Moon 1180**

Battle finds them readily.

Ashe has always known that learning to fight—how to effectively win a battle, how to kill if need be—is just what it takes to be a knight. He knew from the second a bow and quiver of arrows was placed in his hands that he would have to use it to take someone’s life. That doesn’t mean he likes it. Ashe’s first kill had terrified him. 

Just like that, a man was dead. A man who, perhaps, had a daughter—a wife, a family.

It had changed him, gave him doubts. Ashe only wanted to protect others, to continue that honorable lineage Lonato guided him on the path toward—but he failed to realize just how much blood stained the path he would walk. 

Maybe Felix is right. It really is nothing like the storybooks.

Still, he’s sworn to do everything he can to stop mindless bloodshed. To do what is necessary to protect instead of harm. To find another way.

Sometimes that feels hard, especially now that Yuri’s around.

It’s not so much that he’s distracting—though Ashe can’t rule out the possibility—but it’s the way he prepares for battle. 

An arsenal of weapons even greater in number than even their professor possesses hidden in various pockets of his uniform. Knowledge no one else would know and the unwillingness to share sources. Unusual tactics. And more, Ashe is sure, is hidden up his sleeve. Things he never saw when they fought together down in Abyss. 

It’s relentless.

Even more so when the same preparation applies for simple missions.

Yuri sits in a corner of the Knight’s Hall, working a contraption in his hands. It reminds Ashe of a bear trap, only the extension of its chain is much longer, and meets the round hoop of a fetter that looks like it would fit around his wrist. 

When he throws it out into the packed dirt, Ashe flinches at its grip, the way it drags into the ground until it’s back in Yuri’s hands again. Yuri frowns, seemingly disappointed, and continues to tinker away. 

The whole thing is a spine-chilling.

“What are you looking at?” 

Ashe doesn’t answer at first, Yuri seems so concentrated, and even asking a dismissive question seems to damage his focus. He nicks his finger on the edge of a sharp blade, and it begs the question as to why he’s building something that would hurt him to make. Why he would need it to defend himself when he already has a weapon. 

Why attack when you can defend? _Defending others is the true nature of a knight._

“That looks rather dangerous, don’t you think?” 

“That is the point,” Yuri says. His voice is a melody without direction—every sarcastic, patronizing, playful thought is seemingly revealed in his tone. But Ashe has figured out over the past moon they’ve spent as classmates that Yuri’s eyes do little to give Ashe an inkling of what he’s _really_ thinking. “You don’t think every battle is roses and daisies, do you?” Yuri’s eyes are piercing despite how amused he sounds, how his simpering lips would make most men feel like fools. “Every illusionist needs a failsafe, every trickster needs a trap. Not everything goes to plan every time.”

“Many times, they clear the area once they see a losing battle. Setting cruel traps to wrangle the stragglers seems... We don’t even know if we have to kill them,” Ashe protests. 

“We always have to kill them,” Yuri retorts. Ashe’s mouth clamps shut, lips twisting into a frown. He can’t begin to understand how Yuri can say such a thing with such a jolly look on his face. “Us before them, or have you forgotten how this world works?”

“I don’t believe in that.” Ashe inhales sharply when Yuri huffs mirthfully. “I _don’t._ And you don’t either, do you? Count Rowe has always believed in mercy—”

“What makes you think I’m anything like the man who adopted me? We’re practically strangers now.”

“Still”—the argument is weak—“he took you in.” 

This back and forth is hollow, Ashe realizes. It’s almost like yelling into the deep forests of Rowe only to have your own voice echo back at you. Yuri doesn’t take him seriously; Ashe can tell. 

“So? Should I have learned from him? Become just like dear old dad because he’s righteous and great?” Every word feels like a test of Ashe’s convictions, and he shrinks away from Yuri’s gaze. “You can claim the title of a good lord’s son all you want, but you will never escape the dregs from whence you came.”

“I—”

“I remember Lord Gaspard only having one legitimate son.” Yuri cuts in, and before Ashe can open his mouth to retaliate, he rushes forward, fast and fierce. 

And then, Yuri suddenly stops. 

His eyes are bright, expression smug—as if he’s just uncovered some great secret. It’s only after Yuri’s piercing gaze falls to his hands that Ashe realizes he’s reached up to cover his throat. To protect his chest.

Ashe drops his hands in an instant, feeling a little ashamed.

“Huh,” Yuri exhales mirthfully, crossing his arms over his chest, giving Ashe his space. “We’re cut from the same cloth, you and I.” 

“No.” _Yes._ Yuri says so without words. As if he knows Ashe and what he’s been through, as if they crossed the same path their entire lives without once meeting. As if he knows that Ashe knows exactly what he means even if he doesn’t bother explaining himself.

The painful part is, Ashe does. Ashe knows exactly what he means—but he doesn’t want to be compared to the scared child he used to be. Where you come from isn’t what you are. 

Ashe will become a knight—even if, at one time, he was a thief.

“I don’t want to hurt people.”

“Sometimes protecting your own means doing just that.” 

“Not at the cost of others. There has to be another way.”

Yuri’s smile fades into something Ashe can’t begin to describe. It feels all wrong, like the tell-tale prickle of a spine-chilling shiver, and Yuri only brings the feeling home when he looks down at Ashe. Taps an index finger against his chest—feather-light. 

And then he pushes in deep.

“You’re just a scared little bluebird, aren’t you?”

Ashe freezes in place, eyes widening as if it’ll help him see through Yuri as easily as he’s seen through him. He picks Ashe apart piece by piece with every off-handed comment he makes, and no matter how good the argument, Ashe can’t seem to get through. And he’s not sure if it’s because Yuri truly doesn’t believe in what he has to say, or if he just likes tormenting him.

But, Yuri is _good._ Despite the way he acts—the front he pulls—he’s kind and true and protective. He cares. It’s just difficult for Ashe to accept the ways he shows it. Even if he’s sure there are reasons, it’s clear to see that they don’t see eye to eye.

Ashe wishes he could understand, but even if he did, he doesn’t think that says anything about who he is. Ashe is different; he might be soft, but he’s good. He’s kind and true and protective, too.

He’s not afraid. He’s not scared.

Ashe clenches his fists. Turns around and walks away.

Screw Yuri. 

And Felix, too. 

He’s going to prove both of them wrong.

—0—0—0— 

**Blue Sea Moon 1180**

Ashe feels empty sitting on the pews of the cathedral that afternoon. 

He’s been there since early morning, unable to focus on his studies long enough to retain the professor’s lessons. He’s not sure what good it would do anyway; he’s mediocre at best—that much was made clear during their last battle. 

Professor Byleth had been relying on him to protect Lady Rhea, relying on him to keep a clear head, but Ashe had failed more than once because he couldn’t see past the last man standing against them. 

Ashe presses his lips together, mushes his mouth as if he’s trying to hold back the words bubbling up deep inside him.

Lonato is dead.

No one saw his betrayal coming—least of all Ashe. And he has to thank battle, at least, for helping him grow a thicker skin. Fighting has made him harder, even if it’s just on the outside. This way, no one has to see him cry over a lord who turned his sword against the church. 

Still, he mourns the good man he calls father even now. Sits and regards the pang in his chest when he realizes that maybe things really aren’t what he wanted to believe they were. 

Ashe sighs, twisting his hands in his lap. He should be doing something—should be trying to do his school work. His chores. _Something._

Instead, he’s here, staring at the ground and not the statues, the stained glass, the Goddess—feeling sorry for himself. At the very least, he should pray for Lonato’s soul. But it’s difficult to look at her now, the Goddess, and he wonders if he ever deserves to, wonders if she’s disappointed in his lack of faith in her as of late. 

Ashe tries not to linger on things he’ll probably never understand.

Instead, he focuses on the sound of a deep, melodic voice singing in the background. It blends with the surroundings like the sound of a founding choir, bellowing with power, but soft and breathy in overtone. It guides him away from that dark place, like discovering a diamond in the rough and reaching towards it so desperately, not even the sinking sands can stop him from grasping its shine. 

Ashe focuses on the sound until it’s gone, and then, on the presence suddenly sitting beside him. 

“What are you doing here?” Ashe asks, surprised at the croaking sound of his own voice, and he counts the long, contemplative seconds until he finally gets an answer.

“Despite what people think, I’m actually quite the believer.” A pause, and then: “Choir practice,” Yuri clarifies, as if Ashe isn’t already aware that what he said was just another one of his witty remarks. But there’s something more unbelievable than Yuri believing or not believing in the Goddess that does surprise him, probably more than it should.

Choir practice is attended in pairs, and Dorothea was the only other person assigned today.

“That was _you?_ ”

“Don’t remind me. He wouldn’t let me leave,” Yuri mutters. “Anyway, what’s a little bird like you doing moping around this _joyous_ place?” Ashe looks down at their shoes, how one of Yuri’s disappears only to reappear a beat later, one of his ankles propped up over his knee. “Could it be that you’re still sore about your adoptive father?”

Ashe peeks up at that, stares at eyes staring back at him questioning until Yuri shrugs and looks away.

“Nothing above escapes the ears of those below.”

True enough, Ashe supposes, but that doesn’t make the reminder any less painful.

“Oh,” he murmurs, after the choir’s already ended one song and began the next. “I remember you telling me that once.” He offers Yuri a lie of a smile that isn’t returned; Yuri’s gaze doesn’t stray from the face of the Goddess. But Ashe thinks he wouldn’t see a smile back even if he were looking straight at him.

He stares back down at his hands, curls his fists. “I just wish I knew...” he continues. “I wish I knew what he was thinking—why he would decide to turn against the church like this.”

“He had his reasons, I’m sure. He was none too fond of Catherine when they came face to face, after all,” Yuri reminds him. 

Ashe knows, he was there—he’d seen the rage in Lonato’s eyes, had seen the way he rushed forward to his death. And, too afraid of what might happen if he did, Ashe found that his body wouldn’t move. Not for one side or the other. Too weighed down by questions he knew he’d never get the answer to. 

“A lot of things changed after Christophe died. I was never really told the details of it. I was younger then,” he reasons. If he’d been then as he is now, would he have chosen Lonato’s fate, too? Ashe isn’t sure he could ever raise his weapon to a friend. He’d proved to everyone that day that he couldn’t put the past behind him for the greater good. “Lonato had seemed so faithful, though, despite it all.”

“That is the trick of the trade.”

The trick of the trade... Then that just means Lonato chose not to include him in his plans. All this time an heir to Gaspard, and Lonato never deemed him worthy of his secrets. Couldn’t admit that he would one day be the enemy.

Ashe feels the sting of betrayal at the thought before thinking indignantly, _no—he was a good man._ His heart must’ve been in the right place. And it had been his fight, not Ashe’s, and Ashe likes to think that Lonato had loved him and his siblings enough to protect him—even if it was from himself and his beliefs.

“Hey.” Ashe’s head snaps up at Yuri’s voice, and he realizes as he looks back at Yuri that he’s been quiet enough to cause concern. That sliver of worry in the deep, velvety eyes staring into his disappears before it can make him feel any better. Yuri crosses his arms over his chest, leans back in his seat. “Don’t think too much about it. You’ll never know what his true intentions were now.”

Ashe nods, sighs through his nose. “Yeah.”

“What matters is that you’re the one alive, not him. You get to choose what you do with his legacy,” Yuri continues. “I’m sure you’ll think of something that would’ve made him proud.”

Ashe knows that Yuri—now, at least—is trying to comfort him. Something hopeful balloons in his chest at the consideration, maybe at the way Yuri looks over at him with that confident gleam in his eyes, and at the way his words seem to give Ashe something to believe in. He blinks away the pinprick of tears gathering in his eyes.

“You’re right,” Ashe smiles, brows dipping as he looks down at his hands. “I will.”

Someone behind them clears their throat loudly, and they turn around in their seats to see Professor Byleth and Dorothea standing by the pews designated for choir practice. He waves at Ashe with a barely there smile, waiting for him to wave back before fixing Yuri with a look.

“Ugh, he’s calling me back for more,” Yuri groans, reluctantly standing from the pew with a mildly annoyed look. “I really do hate singing the hymns.”

He intends to leave without saying more, and Ashe is too amused by his aversion to singing that he almost forgets to thank him. 

“Yuri,” Ashe says softly, and though he looks nowhere but ahead, he can feel Yuri’s intense gaze over his shoulder. The quiet ferocity of it gives him cold feet. “If it’s any consolation, I think your voice is really wonderful.”

Maybe he’ll mourn the death of Lonato for a while still, and maybe the feeling of loss never really goes away, even when you’ve won. Even if that’s true, he’ll just have to try harder to do what’s right, won’t he?

Yuri says nothing back, but the world around Ashe feels lighter. The sound of boots clicking away from him sets the tempo of a much sweeter melody, and Ashe is left alone with the Goddess once more. 

—0—0—0—

**Ethereal Moon 1180**

Ashe likes to think he and Dedue have become the closest of friends, huddled in their little corner and talking about hobbies over wine. 

Dedue was quiet and shy at first—they both were—always at Dimitri’s side and never straying for any selfish reason of his own, unless it was to help out in the greenhouse. That’s where Ashe really hit it off with him during one of his first chore assignments. They had a lot to teach each other then, it seemed, about plants and flowers and vegetables. And themselves. 

Ashe likes to think it’s because of those little talks that they’ve come to rely on each other so much. Even now, at the monastery’s winter ball, they gravitate to one another when the festivities become too much.

Though... Ashe is proud of himself for finding a place he belongs amongst the expensive decorations and the crowds of nobles—duke, count, and margrave.

And that he branched out a little, bonded with other houses over their shared love of things. Linhardt and Caspar, for one, are wonderful to talk to; they don’t require too much, and are relaxed when they’re together. Marianne is particularly shy, but she had smiled when he complimented her dedication to the monastery’s steeds, even if she disappeared from the refreshment table without so much of a peep the next second. 

He’d even danced with Dorothea, who had smacked Sylvain’s hand away when it fell a little too low along her back and whisked Ashe into her arms, humming to the sound of the orchestra’s song and laughing lightly at his two left feet. And even though it left him exhausted, he had a lot of fun. 

It was almost as if the tense world of politics they live in didn’t matter.

At some point, he does tire of it, and chooses to retreat to his room early. Ashe bids goodnight to Dedue somewhere between watching Ferdinand and Hubert bicker and Dimitri picking off and eating every small block of cheese from a charcuterie board. He only hopes, as he steps from the crowd to leave, that none of them end up sick.

“Hey, did you save a dance for me?” 

Sylvain meets him at the door, his long body blocking the entrance as he leans against the frame. Ashe smiles at the offer, shaking his head in response to the question and also at the way Sylvain wiggles his fingers at someone over his shoulder. Probably some girl. 

“Maybe next time. I actually think I should head back to my room for the night.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Sylvain says with a wink, pushing off the door frame and slapping a hand onto Ashe’s shoulder before he sets off into the crowd, tongue clicking when he finds his next venture. “Hey, _Mer-ce-des~_ ”

He flits so easily from one person to the next, it’s eye-roll worthy. 

Stepping out into the cold feels refreshing. He can see his breath puff out into tiny little clouds, and there’s fresh dew on the grass beneath his feet. It’s a completely different atmosphere than what he experienced just seconds before, but it’s more than welcome. He heads straight through the courtyard towards the dorm, only taking pause when the lights of the Goddess Tower shine to distract him along the way.

There’s something that stirs inside him. Calls him up to the top floor and gives nothing away from it’s dark, shadowed windows. Part of him wants to relax—to curl up on his bed with a book and read late into the night before sleeping off his winey haze.

Another wants to head up to the top and see just what the legends were all about.

Ashe has to admit that his curiosity does seem to have the upper hand.

Maybe it’s because of something Hilda had said earlier that night about going to rendezvous with someone special. Ashe had laughed it off before, but... He can’t say he isn’t thinking about it now. 

It never hurts to see what fate has in store, after all. Not any worse than it already has.

Ashe climbs the tower at a casual pace. It’s somewhere he’s never been, warrants taking time to admire the way every floor’s windows reveal a different view of the monastery. His path to the top is uneventful, but fulfilling, and if there’s no one waiting for him at the top, at least he can cross this little adventure off his list. 

Only, there _is_ someone waiting.

Rushing behind the nearest wall, which is just one of the many columns decorating the tower’s topmost floor, Ashe holds his breath, only peeking around the corner when the air is still. 

Yuri is leaning over the sill, propped up by his elbows as the wintry air tousles his hair. There’s a serene look on his face, one that Ashe has seen before plenty of times down in Abyss, that makes the entire scene feel surreal in this new atmosphere. He can barely look at it without feeling a coiling twist in his chest. 

Sighing under his breath, Ashe looks away, leans back and knocks his head on the stone behind him.

“Come on,” Yuri huffs; he sounds a little exasperated. “You can do better than that.”

Ashe’s breath catches and he goes still, pressing every inch of himself against the pillar. His body is colder for it, because it’s definitely every touch of stone against bare skin making him shiver—not that voice. And it’s not getting caught that makes his heart pound in his throat, he swears, but the fact that he has to pretend he’s not the least bit hopeful that of all people waiting for him at the top, it just so happens to be Yuri.

“It isn’t like I don’t know you’re there.” 

After a second or two of silence, Ashe steps out from the shadows—a little embarrassed, but what’s done is done. 

“Sorry,” he says, and Ashe thinks this might be the very first time he’s ever said something insincere. 

“Never took you for the peeping type.”

Ashe snaps his head up in a panic. “I-I wasn’t—!”

“Relax. I’m kidding.” Yuri huffs, amused. “It’s not like I wasn’t looking at _you,_ ” he admits, nodding toward the open window facing the courtyard. 

“Oh.” Ashe’s feet carry him over to Yuri, and he peeks out of the window with a shy smile. “I suppose you can see everything from here.”

“Shouldn’t you be down there?”

“I was, but,”—he shakes his head; he can see Sylvain flitting from girl to girl and Felix glaring at him from a gloomy corner down below—“I wanted to get back to my room before it became too late. I’m just here because...” His hands are like vice grips around each other. They squeeze together, come apart, as if they were mimicking the beat and break of his heart. Ashe could say a number of things, he’s sure, but he doesn’t really want to tell Yuri that he was hoping to see him here.

He tries again. “I was just—”

“You wanted to see if ‘ _your destiny is awaiting you in the Goddess Tower’._ ” 

Hearing his thoughts said out loud makes him feel warm, his cheeks tingling with heat as he smiles. “I was a little curious, I suppose.” 

“I guess it would be stranger if you weren’t,” Yuri says. “But I’m afraid there’s no destiny for you here.”

“You don’t think so?”

Ashe watches Yuri closely, noticing how a question doesn’t beg the look of contemplation from him, as though he always knows the answer—has it prepared before he’s even asked a thing. 

“Nothing is for certain. Every move you make is your own.”

“Wouldn’t it be easy to let yourself believe for once?” Ashe feels brave asking, like he can—for once—light a fire if he tried hard enough. “There’s no harm in hoping.”

“You’re charming, you know that?” Yuri says with a smile, propping his elbows on the windowsill as he turns toward Ashe. His eyes are practically _glittering_ with something like amusement, but Ashe can’t be sure if he’s actually laughing at him or paying him a genuine compliment. But Ashe doesn’t think he can bring himself to care either way—not when Yuri’s leaning just a little bit closer to him, looking all the more intently into his eyes. “Really, you should’ve been born a prince.”

If that’s so, then Ashe could say the same of Yuri. Looking down at everything with a prettily curled lip from the top of an ivory tower, beautiful and regal, painted like the oiled artworks hanging in Garreg Mach’s Audience Hall. 

But Yuri suits the role of a hero more. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, Ashe knows he always has everyone else’s best interests at heart. Selfishly selfless, protecting the poor and the weak, never claiming the fame for his own. 

If that’s not a hero, he doesn’t know what is.

“What about you?” Ashe finally asks. “What are you doing here?”

Yuri’s lips quirk. “Got really tired of dealing with Balthus,” he says, amused even as he sighs. “Seriously, that guy’s abs have never gleaned so much attention.” 

Ashe smiles. “Topsiders?”

With a laugh, Yuri agrees, rolling his eyes.

“Topsiders.”

—0—0—0—

**Pegasus Moon 1181**

Ashe has taken to exploring in his free time. 

Though he can usually be found in the greenhouse or monastery kitchens, it’s become a new normal to see him wandering Abyss. Ashe has never been one to turn down a request, of course, but more often than not, he’s been taking on a few easier tasks meant for the professor—if they’re within his power to do so—traveling down into the depths.

More likely, though, he just wants a reason to spend time with Yuri.

Ashe doesn’t seek him out right away, of course. Despite his desire to see him, Ashe does keep to his chores; anything else can come after. Today, Professor Byleth asked him to retrieve a few rusty weapons from one of the deep-floor quarters.

He makes his way down after a couple of quick hello’s and an even longer greeting from Constance, peeking into each open door to see if anything has changed. 

It’s not often that something new happens in Abyss, but it never hurts to look.

A faint glow distracts him from a room full of dusty teacups and tableware, poisonous in color and bleeding into the dark corridor like smoke and shadows. Ashe gravitates toward it immediately, stepping before the doorway to the Wayseer’s chamber.

It surprises Ashe. As much as he’s heard about this place before, he’s never actually seen it.

The Wayseer watches him with deep, narrowed eyes. Her hands poised over a crystal sphere that seems to glow brighter the longer he looks at it. He’s entranced by the novelty of it, deeply curious about what secrets a crystal could tell him; the future, perhaps? Isn’t that what a Wayseer would see?

Without much thought, he takes a step forward.

“You’re not here to get your fortune told, are you?” 

Ashe inhales sharply, head snapping up in the direction of the voice. Yuri stands at his side, looking straight ahead at the Wayseer with a pleasant look on his face, lifting his hand in a half-hearted wave. Really, Ashe thinks he could laugh at his luck, but it doesn’t seem right to push it.

He came here specifically to look for Yuri, but it’s times like this that make him wonder if—maybe—Yuri looks for him, too.

“Oh.” Ashe reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “Not exactly... I was actually going to get some things from the Scrap Heap for the professor.” _And I was hoping to see you along the way._ “But it does interest me—I’m sure it’d interest anyone.”

Yuri tilts his head to the side, his smile tight-lipped. “I don’t think I see the benefit of it myself.”

“At all?” 

Heavy-lashed eyes flicker over at him, and Ashe looks away sheepishly.

“Wouldn’t you want the chance to prevent something bad from happening?” Ashe isn’t sure he’d be able to let go if one were given to him. By now, he’s used to losing things, knows he can’t just jump at the first chance he gets to take them back—that’s not how life works, but... “I keep thinking, if I knew what was going to happen to Lonato, if I knew he was going to turn against the church—I could have done something about it.”

“Not a chance,” Yuri retorts. “Not even the Goddess would grant you that power.”

“Good and bad are both things you make happen for yourself, right? Nothing is set in stone until it becomes the past...” Ashe’s words spill thoughtlessly, so half-hearted and rooted in denial they hardly sound believable. He mushes his lips together, eyes falling to the Wayseer’s crystal. “Shouldn’t I believe in that?”

“What if you saw the future and wanted to stop something from happening, but in doing so, made it happen anyway?” Yuri counters, arms crossing over his chest. “Would you not regret poking your nose where it shouldn’t belong?”

“Do you ever?”

Yuri looks amused, but for a second, Ashe thinks he sees a flicker of surprise. The minute widening of his eyes, the twitch of his lips. “Maybe,” he relents. “Anyway, seeing the future isn’t what the Wayseer is here for. She can only guide the timeline forward. Tie together the fates of those who are compatible.” 

“Tie together fates...?” Ashe looks into the Wayseer’s chamber, looks back at Yuri. “Have you ever—”

“I don’t need people.”

“That sounds lonely.” Ashe tries to make sense of it; of the ability to live like a lone wolf in a great, wide world. He couldn’t do it himself. Without people to love and support him, it would be impossible, that’s why Ashe knows deep down that Yuri can’t possibly _mean_ that. 

“You know, I’m here for you,” Ashe adds softly. “If you wanted to, you could need me.”

Yuri hums, lips a subtle simper. “It sounds like you’re the one who needs someone.”

“I guess that’s true, after everything. But—we all need someone. The way things are now, I...”

“Then ask her to entwine _our_ fates.” Yuri’s smile grows a little wider, and Ashe suddenly feels like he’s being toyed with; _he doesn’t mean that, he’s just trying to get a rise out of you._ “I’ve seen the way you look at me. Ask her to make me yours so you never have to be alone again.” 

“I would never do that,” Ashe says, softer than he meant to. “It isn’t right—you can’t just do whatever you want with someone else’s life.”

That playful smile falls into something cold. “Oh? But you’d go back in time to make sure Lonato breathes another day.” Yuri nods once, twice—takes a pandering step toward the hall before looking back, saying something that catches Ashe off guard: “Am I not good enough to be included in your plans?”

“I... I didn’t say that—”

A hand slams into the wall behind his head and Ashe clamps his mouth shut. He falls back against the cool stone, Yuri’s body hanging over him like a cage, eyes rendering him immobile. 

Ashe’s heart rate skyrockets when Yuri smiles, like it does for every smile— _any_ smile—and he laser-focuses on the curl of his mouth, the sudden crinkle of his eyes. 

He’s not sure he’s still breathing when Yuri’s eyes flicker down to his lips.

And then, they’re kissing. Mouths pressed together warm and soft, unexpectedly careful for someone like Yuri, who Ashe always thought would kiss like he’s fighting. And despite how it feels like the infinite climax of his favorite storybook, it’s all wrong. 

Yuri doesn’t share in the soft candle-light flame of foreign feelings Ashe possesses for him.

He shoves his hands forward and Yuri goes stumbling back.

Ashe feels stunned, stricken by lightning. The touch of Yuri’s kiss lingers on his lips like a phantom pain, a pins-and-needles sensation that twists his chest. 

“So, this is how it goes.” Yuri laughs. An odd, disbelieving sound that he barely has to part lips for as he shakes his head, reaches up with the back of his hand and wipes at his lips. He turns around so fast that Ashe’s mind doesn’t have enough time to wonder what it’s supposed to mean.

But Yuri’s still walking away, and that’s enough for Ashe to rush forward and reach for his hand.

  
—0—0—0—

**Lone Moon 1181**

“Something’s coming,” Byleth whispers the night before he sets foot in the Holy Tomb two moons later to receive revelation, and Ashe wishes he’d been brave enough to speak to the Wayseer when he had the chance.

—0—0—0—

Ashe takes it all back.

He takes everything back.

There were so many things about knighthood that Ashe had wanted—the ability to prove himself, the gold to provide for his family, the strength to _save_ people. He’d even wished for that never-ending adrenaline rush that courses through his veins when the time for battle comes. He’s grown into accepting the horrors of it, the list of consequences he carries like stones in his pockets, because there’s a silver-lining beyond the smoke-plume sky. 

It’s different, though, when the ones you’re facing—the people you’re killing—were people you once thought you knew.

He’s been through it with Lonato. It hurts.

So when Edelgard takes up arms against them, he wants to mourn the moments he cooked for her and she complimented every presented meal. Wants to cry at the thought that _he fell for it again._ Get angry and show off all the strength no one really believes he has.

Ashe gets to do all of those things, and none of it makes him feel better. 

Edelgard’s betrayal had shaken them; who knew that behind the dead-eyed mask of the Flame Emperor—the conspirator, the enemy—was a friend? Ashe didn’t want to believe it at first, but there are many things he doesn’t want to believe are true. It doesn’t mean he can run away from them. 

Mercedes and Annette hold on to hope like they hold onto each other. Felix speaks of killing and Sylvain speaks of dying. Ingrid suddenly becomes the knight she’s always wanted to be, though not in the way she expected. 

They are all battered and broken now; there’s no room for excuses. 

Dimitri, most of all, is ruined in irrefutable ways. No one knows why he’s taking it so hard, and he hasn’t spoken to any of them since that day except, perhaps, Dedue.

Ashe doesn’t know where they are now.

His lungs are full of smoke. And everywhere he looks, there are signs of ruin. Garreg Mach’s marketplace is unrecognizable, nothing but rubble and split wood now that Edelgard’s army has overwhelmed the front lines and has made its way to the gates. Ashe looks as he might, but between holding off imperial soldiers and watching his own back, but he can’t locate the professor—can’t find a source to give him orders. 

When it comes to fighting, he never knows where to start. 

But he spots Annette by a great stone pillar, holding off a few soldiers all on her own, and figures that’s as good a line as any. She’s clearly injured, favoring her left side as the blasts of her magic attacks weaken. And when she takes to her axe, it isn’t long before its swings become less mighty. Ashe reacts quickly, pulling a few arrows from his quiver and shooting them into her assailants—one, two, three. His precision is not great, but it gets the job done.

By the time he reaches Annette, she’s surrounded by flames. He pulls her from the fire, leading her back behind what’s left of the Entrance Hall by the hand to where a few mages are tending to Kingdom soldiers. Annette collapses, falling to her knees only to be encased in a white glow by one of the priests at the door.

“Annette, will you be alright?”

“I will be!” She looks up at him—small and delicate, her dress in tatters—with a wavering smile. “Don’t worry about me—you have to go!”

Ashe goes. He fights. The imperial soldiers do not cease, and his quiver can only hold so many arrows. 

His eyes flicker back and forth frantically, looking for an exit as a soldier lunges toward him, sword swinging down from above. Ashe is able to block it with his bow, but his arms ache under the pressure; he’s not sure how much more of this he can take. 

It’s over for him. It has to be.

There’s a loud _crack_ in the distance, and Ashe is thrown aside, rocky rubble digging into his back as he hits the ground. The pain is so sharp that, for a moment, he ceases to have senses. It’s a white-hot blur, rendering him motionless and open to attack. He waits for it, has accepted it. 

It never comes.

“Come now, little bluebird,” a familiar voice calls. “I just saved you, you know. You could at least try not to lie there like a sitting duck.”

Ashe’s eyes crack open, and he sits up, head heavy with dizzying pain. It takes him a while to focus, but when he does, it’s on worn, muddy boots. A thin sword covered in blood. And a long cape stained with dust and dirt the same color as Yuri’s eyes.

He’s been rescued. Which is more than he expected at that last split second of his life. Ashe was sure he was done for, that it was over, and that he’d die regretting not being able to help his friends. But he’d survived yet again— _somehow_ —with all of his blood in his body and all of his bones intact.

And Yuri... looking down at him, lips curled into a smirk.

Ashe thinks, just for a moment, that he can survive anything so long as Yuri keeps looking at him like that.

“What are you—?”

A powerful explosion cuts him off, and Ashe is thrown back; the darkness of oblivion consumes him.

0

0

0

The second Ashe’s eyes open, he screws them shut. The sun is blinding, a mass of fire searing his eyes as particles of dust and debris cloud his vision. His body aches, every twitch of his fingertips sending a white-hot shot of pain though his aims and down his spine. It’s nothing a little time won’t fix, but it’s suffering all the same.

He’s not sure how long he lies there, dazed and disoriented, but sooner or later he’s alerted by the crackling sound of fire.

Ashe shoots up from the ground only to fall back again, his ears ringing from the sudden dizzy spell. It’s only when he goes to rub the heel of his hand into his eye that he feels it, soft and fluttering along his cheek, curled into his fist.

A frayed shred of dyed purple fabric.

Ashe stares down at it, the charred edges rough against the palm of his hand where his glove was torn and shredded, the feel of it so familiar it hurts. Wracking his brain for a memory, Ashe pulls the velvety cloth to his chest, a sudden onslaught of his greatest fears carving a hole in his chest. 

The last thing he remembers is a perfectly smug smile, a fiery-hot blast—

And a cape blowing in the wind, embers burning it to ash in the blink of an eye.

Ashe’s hand curls into a fist around the remains of Yuri’s cape. His teeth grind down until he feels dust on his tongue. His eyes sting deep in his skull with unshed tears. 

He doesn’t need to look around to know that he’s alone.

Dying with regrets is one thing, but living with them is a different kind of suffering.

Out in the distance, Garreg Mach is on fire. 

  
  


—0—0—0—

**???**

Ashe wanders aimlessly for a long time after that. Branded a traitor to Gaspard where his siblings are locked away and guarded closely, it’s all he can do.

If he ever gets to see them again, it’ll be long after the war. 

And that’s only if he survives.

It all seems so meaningless when he thinks back on that day. Everyone he knows is gone—either dead or missing—and he asks himself what use is there to being a knight when there is no one to protect. 

Sometimes, though, when he sees a violet in the overgrowth of the forests, he wonders what happened to Yuri after he’d saved Ashe on that battlefield. 

The thought that he might still be alive gives him hope.

—0—0—0—

**Garland Moon 1185**

After five years come and go, Ashe hopes a little less.

—0—0—0—

**Ethereal Moon 1185**

_Kick._

“Come on, dude.” 

_Kick, kick._

“You can’t spend all day sleeping.”

Linhardt groans from deep within several layers of Caspar’s thin, tattered blankets. Ashe finds their antics comforting on mornings like this, when they’ve slept through the entire night, undisturbed by bandit or beast.

“Hapi, it’s barely morning.” 

Hapi looks like she’s holding back a sigh.

“The sun’s pretty high in the sky right now. I’d say it’s far past morning.”

_Kick._

Just for good measure.

Caspar stretches his arms over his head. “Yeah, Lin—don’tcha wanna make it to the monastery before dark?”

Ashe’s hands still from where he’s coiling up his bedroll. It hadn’t hit him before; the date—the time. He knew what they were traveling for, where their destination lied, but none of it felt real to him. Not until someone went and spoke it into existence like it wouldn’t have been if none of them said a word.

He begins packing in haste.

Today is the day. 

Five years ago, a war began. Five years ago, Ashe’s faith in everything, including himself, was tested. 

Five years ago was the last time he saw his professor, Dimitri—the rest of the Blue Lions. 

But today, they’ll be waiting for him at Garreg Mach.

Or they won’t be—and the questions Ashe has held inside himself all this time will be answered.

Ashe purses his lips, his hopeful mood soured when he thinks about whether or not his friends are alive and what or who might have killed them. It twists his stomach, makes everything taste bitter, but he tries to look on the bright side of things. He has to be grateful for what he has now. He’s no stranger to sadness and hard times, but he’s fortunate to have friends to pull him through. Everything else is a bonus.

Even though he’ll miss anyone who’s left behind.

Ashe tries not to think about Bernadetta looking up at him shyly when he delivered to her room a bunch of missing things. Or Hubert helpfully pointing out his mistakes when studying battle tactics.

Or the genuine way Edelgard complimented his food on nights when he cooked for everyone in the Dining Hall.

Caspar waves a hand in front of his face.

“Ashe?” He looks concerned; makes a small noise in the back of his throat. “You okay, buddy?”

“Oh—yes. Sorry about that.” The smile on Ashe’s face is genuine, but strained. “I guess I’m just excited to see everyone after all these years. I heard lots of talk from Mercedes some moons ago that Annette and Felix would be there. I hope they make it.” And then, quieter: “I hope all of them do. His Highness...”

If Hapi could sigh, Ashe thinks she would.

They’ve heard rumors about Dimitri, but none of them are certain.

And now, they will return to Garreg Mach, if just to see where the pieces have fallen. 

—0—0—0—

Caspar punches the palm of his hand with a feral grin. “Looks like there’s a fight!”

“Must we do this so soon after sleeping?” Linhardt groans.

It took them the rest of the afternoon before they caught sight of the broken stone walls, and well into evening before signs of life began to show themselves. Enraged cries called them to the wreckage of the monastery’s outer towers, and before they knew it, the four of them were thrust in the thick of battle.

Ashe would much rather there be no fight at all.

His legs ache from the long trek and the strain on his shoulders from unleashing arrow after arrow is taking its toll. And his back is aching from being thrown into the remnants of a demolished home, the sharp stones having pinched his skin through his armor.

The only upside to this battle is the reunion.

Hapi had spotted Dimitri and the professor fighting a group of bandits side by side, their numbers increasing rapidly with the call of reinforcements. Ashe had been relieved to see His Highness, his only worry that their small group wouldn’t be enough to keep the enemy at bay.

But then, they came.

Felix, Sylvain, Annette, Mercedes—one by one, they all appeared to lend their aid. And Ashe became hopeful for their victory, running into battle with a prize in sight. There are a handful of old classmates he has yet to see, and nothing seems to be going quite right, but he holds on for what it’s worth so he can make his way back to them.

There aren’t many enemies, but their last-minute army is spread about all over the field, and none of them are having an easy time finding one another. Even Linhardt and Caspar are nowhere to be seen, having been separated from Ashe and Hapi shortly after the fight began. 

But they’re managing, slowly thinning the numbers.

“Look out!”

Hapi points west, and Ashe whips around and aims for the first enemy he sees, shooting one of the bandits in the chest only to be caught off guard when a shard of ice from a Blizzard spell lodges into his chest and knocks him off his feet. Ashe’s head hits the ground as the sound of exchanged blows crackle above him, the electric sound of Hapi’s dark magic fending off the enemy. 

Everything is a momentary blur; it takes longer than he’d like to recognize her face when she looks down at him worriedly.

“Hey—!” Hapi’s voice cuts off. She’s thrown feet away by a blast of Fire that boils over Ashe’s skin, and the pain traveling under his skin is nothing compared to his sudden fear of losing her. 

It’s agony, to have come so close to reuniting with everyone—with his friends, with the professor—only for it to be stolen from him so quickly. 

He looks up and sees a shadow pressing forward, another faint glow becoming a raging fire in their hands. 

Ashe closes his eyes and braces himself for the hit.

But it never comes.

Ashe cracks open his eyes.

They grow impossible wide.

It reminds him of sunrise. Ashe is blinded by the aftermath of a Fire spell that glows white-blue, engulfing everything in light before dissipating to nothing in the air. From its ashes, a single figure stands, gloved fingers tipping a feathered chapel hat and cape flowing around the silhouette in a familiar shade of violet. 

Ashe’s savior lifts his head just so, an unmistakable smile on rose petal-painted lips. 

“Well, look who it is.”

Ashe can barely hear Hapi’s voice as she pulls herself from the dregs. He’s too focused on an unforgotten face, on trying to cope with long-buried feelings that bubble up in his chest like fast-falling brooks streaming south. Everything around him slows in that last-few-pages-of-a-fairytale way, catches his breath and pulls him into confusing depths.

“What are you looking at, little bluebird?”

Ashe lets out a held breath. 

“You’re okay,” he says—more desperately than he means to. Yuri’s expression softens suddenly, there and gone in an instant, and Ashe swears to the Goddess that he’s just imagined it in his pain-induced delirium.

“I have long sleeves.” That’s right. For his tricks. But even then, it doesn’t sound like the Yuri he knows; said with too much fondness, too much of something hidden in the depths. But just like everything good and well, it disappears with the sound of an explosion. 

“It’s them,” Hapi says softly.

Yuri’s expression becomes hard. “Come on—it isn’t over yet.”

Ashe nods, scrambles to get up and follow only for his knees to buckle as a sharp pain shoots up into his chest. The pain is a white-hot crawl from his stomach to the tips of his fingers, and he barely notices being hoisted upward. His arm is thrown across Hapi’s shoulders, her small stature a suitable crutch to help him stand. 

“You okay, dude?” She stares down at his chest, and Ashe imagines it’s wet with his blood, a hole where the ice shard used to be. “You’re hurt. We should find Linhardt.”

Ashe wants to agree. More than anything, he wants to rest. But when he looks up and sees Yuri boring holes into his chest, watches as his eyes flicker up into his own—something indiscernible in them that stirs endless curiosity in Ashe’s gut—he stands a little taller. 

He’s dealt with worse.

“When the time comes,” Ashe says, pulls himself from her grip and makes his way back toward the fray. “For now, I can still fight.”

Another hand catches the elbow of his arm, stopping him in his tracks. Ashe’s eyes flicker down into Yuri’s, his gaze shifting, both piercing and concerned. “Are you sure? We can’t afford a liability in the thick of it.”

“I’m sure,” Ashe assures him, and in a moment of bravery, places his hand over Yuri’s. “I’ll be alright.” 

And, when this is all over, he thinks, maybe they can all come together for an actual reunion. 

He’ll be overjoyed that Felix and Mercedes and Annette _are_ okay. That Sylvain looks just the same as he did back then, but stronger, wiser. That they have more allies now than they had back then, with Balthus and Constance and Leonie on their side. 

Ashe will think about how Dimitri is finally back, but different. Darker. Sadder. And he’ll cry bitterly for Dedue, his dearest friend. He’ll miss him sorely, cherish his memory forever. And when the dust clears, he’ll plant a flower in the greenhouse in Dedue’s honor. Pray to Dedue’s gods, if they’d hear him, that he finds peace wherever he is. 

And then he’ll wish this war a thing of the past.

—0—0—0—

“It’s good to have you back, you know.”

Ashe smiles down at Mercedes, who looks up at him with a sympathetic smile of her own. It’s strained and doesn’t reach her eyes, and he wonders if she can see right through him, like she sees through just about everyone. 

“It’s good to be back,” he says, though it’s only a half-truth. His heart still aches from news of Dedue’s death and his chest is a mess, but the last thing he wants is Mercedes fretting over his wounds—physical or otherwise. 

Her time with him is brief once he assures her he’s alright; he can tell she wants to make her way around the room before flitting back to Annette’s side and he’d rather not take up all of her time. 

Ashe watches her go with his head held high, and decides that he should start looking forward and stop looking back. 

He meets everyone with a hopeful grin, welcoming back old friends and new—Marianne is here, and Raphael, too. And even those from Abyss have found the monastery again, willing to call it home once more.

When Yuri comes into view, his heart aches bitter-sweetly.

Yuri has saved Ashe twice now, stayed by his injured side during their battle earlier that day—seems concerned for him whenever trouble strikes. 

Even now, five years down the line.

Ashe doesn’t know what to make of him, and he doesn’t know where they stand. It feels as though they’re still at odds—friends, or more, or nothing; this less-than-something, more-than-anything middle-ground would drive him mad if he wasn’t still recovering from battle. 

Despite how Ashe feels about him, Yuri fits in with the rest of their house just fine. He smiles and laughs and catches up with ease, as if no time has passed between their school days and now. And when their long-awaited and short-lived reunion comes to an end and Professor Byleth speaks his final words about where the war will take them, everyone splits off as they normally would after a monthly mission.

Ashe is the last one to leave the room, limping through the halls in the hopes of getting a good night’s rest. Maybe tomorrow he can begin helping out around the monastery, if this is going to be their base of operations, beginning with the greenhouse. Without food growing, they can’t do much, of course. He’s sure if Dedue were here...

_Tomorrow._ That’s where he’ll start.

Ashe jolts unexpectedly hard when a hand shoots out and wraps around his wrist.

It’s only when his arm is slung over Yuri’s shoulder that Ashe realizes he’d stopped in the middle of the walkway, braced against the wall. Yuri coils an arm around his waist, curling his hand around Ashe’s belt and pulling him close, dragging him forward without saying a word. 

He leads Ashe by candlelight through the monastery, hauling his body down sidewalks and stairs until they reach the dormitories. The torches are all lit like the walls are booming with life again, but the nostalgia of it doesn’t last long when they step over broken glass and rubble. It’s really just an empty husk full of beds they used to occupy. 

Yuri pauses at one of the very last doors, looking up at Ashe from beneath his arm.

“Is this your stop?”

They both know it is. The door looks the same as ever despite the knob being covered in dust. 

“I’m almost afraid to look inside,” Ashe chuckles under his breath humorlessly. “To see if everything is exactly the same.” 

“Only one way to find out.”

The door creaks open slowly, and Ashe almost expects to be greeted by mountains of cobwebs and layers of dust. There are indeed cobwebs, just a few here and there, but the dust isn’t so bad. With a little bit of work and an hour or two, it’ll be just as clean as it used to be.

But nothing has changed. Not a thing.

Pulled over to his bed, Ashe pushes down the sentimentality he feels rising in his lungs—of reading books and studying and simpler times—and sits down heavily. He sighs. “Thanks.”

Yuri takes a step forward, just enough for their knees to touch, and Ashe remembers with perfect clarity the last time they were this close. “How are your injuries?”

“As good as they can be.” His chest aches and his legs are heavy as lead, but it could be worse, Ashe tells himself. It could always be worse. “Mercedes and Linhardt had more serious wounds to heal.”

“I can take the edge off, if you want.”

Yuri’s fingertips find their way to the torn-frayed edges of his coat, pulling the fabric back over his wound. It hurts more than any injury he’s dealt with in a while, and he really should bathe—wash away the grime and dirt and bad news. Should search for spare clothes even though they’re too small to fit him now. 

He should thank Yuri for his time and let him take care of himself—of his own wounds and missed accounts—but Ashe watches the way Yuri’s fingertips poke and prod painfully at the edges of the deep gash at his chest and thinks instead of what he _could_ do instead.

He could say ‘yes’ if it meant Yuri would stay.

“It’s okay, I wasn’t the only one on the battlefield,” Ashe reasons, mostly with himself. “You should rest.”

“Suit yourself,” Yuri answers with a shrug. “If you’re all taken care of then.”

But this doesn’t feel right, does it? Not right at all. 

“Where will you go?” Ashe blurts out. “Are you staying here?”

“I’m a part of this fight, too. I’m not going anywhere.” Waving his hand in the air, Yuri makes his way toward the door, opening it just a crack before he takes pause. “If you’re looking to find me,” he says, “I’ll be down in Abyss.”

Ashe inhales sharply, a long-suffering look following Yuri as he turns his back on him. Never for the first time and never for the wrong reasons, but it still has him smiling sadly.

“Thank you,” he calls, satisfied when the door stutters to a stop. “For saving me again.”

Yuri looks back at him this time. And the moment is like the world ceasing to turn on its axis. It’s the stars twinkling into existence in the same exact spot every night. An arrow being released from a perfectly strung bow in visible motion—its beginning and end determined by arithmetical calculation—hitting its target every time. 

The one right answer to everything. 

But only right, Ashe thinks, if turning around meant never leaving. If he had said ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’. Instead, this is the outcome he’d determined but hadn’t wanted, and it was all his fault. 

He should’ve said yes. 

He should’ve asked about that kiss. 

Yuri tips his hat with a smile and disappears out the door.

“Don’t mention it.”

  
  


—0—0—0—

**Lone Moon 1186**

Ashe’s body feels heavy.

Every part of him aches, from the lacerations along his arms and legs that sting from Mercedes’s partial mend to the bruised soles of his feet. One of his heels had pushed through the bottom of his shoe, and the walk from the battlefield to the campsite had been a misery. 

But it’s okay. Because he’s never felt as victorious as he does today.

For one, they have reunited with Dedue. And Ashe is sure he’s shed just as many tears for his revival as he did his death, but he is grateful. Dimitri looks shaken; no one knows what to make of him, except perhaps Dedue himself. If that much is true, he reveals none of it. As a whole, their slow-growing army has decided that it’s better not to ask. 

Lorenz, surprisingly, has joined them as well, swearing fealty to the professor after being given a second chance. Ashe can’t say they’ve ever spoken much, but the more, the merrier. They could use all the help they can get.

But most of all, maybe selfishly so—

“The tent isn’t going to open itself.”

Most of all, everyone he cares about has remained at his side through it all.

“Sorry,” Ashe smiles back at Yuri sheepishly, stepping inside the tent and dropping onto his bedroll. 

Yuri looks tired, unkempt, and out of sorts as they settle for camp. His makeup has long been cleared from his face and his hair is a mess. He still looks beautiful, Ashe thinks, of course. And though this isn’t the time and place for thoughts like this, Ashe can’t seem to help himself. 

It’s just the two of them in this one tent now, everyone paired-off in two’s here and there around the camp for comfort and privacy. Ashe knows it won’t last forever, that eventually thirty tents will become twenty—will become ten. Or none at all. He enjoys the luxury while he has it, and the closeness he feels with Yuri when they have this space to themselves to talk or bicker or sigh over shared unfortunate circumstances.

Tonight, they won’t do any of that. It’s comfortable silence all around as Ashe rummages for leftover food in his bag and Yuri peels off his clothes, soaking wet from taking a hit and falling into a river during a skirmish with a few raging Adrestian stragglers. 

Ashe turns his head at a particularly disgruntled sound. 

The scars criss-cross over the expanse of Yuri’s back, are deep and shallow and old and fresh. And though Ashe would usually berate himself and avert his eyes to avoid invading Yuri’s privacy, the glow of the oil lantern tucked into the corner of their tent illuminates horrors he can’t seem to look away from.

It’s something he can only imagine comes from horror stories and castle dungeons. Streaks of red and silver are seared into his skin, black-tinged along his spine and growing pinker as they spread. Yuri’s arms are forever bruised with rope-like lines, and Ashe isn’t sure if they’re the result of being bound or stricken by dark magic.

He’s only sure that all of the questions in line on his tongue will go unanswered if he asks.

“What are you looking at?” 

Ashe’s eyes flicker up. Yuri isn’t looking at him. And Ashe is used to hearing those words, sure, but it doesn’t sound like the playful lilt he’s used to, the genuine curiosity that lives on the tip of Yuri’s tongue. Just something to say as he breathes out his exhaustion. 

It’s rhetorical, probably, but Ashe can’t seem to stop himself from answering.

“Those don’t look like ordinary scars,” he says, not thinking as he reaches out for them. And it takes just a second for him to think better of it, to pull back, but he still manages to accidentally brush Yuri’s skin. They’re so close together that it’s difficult to keep apart—but he could have, he really could. 

When Yuri flinches and whips around, Ashe suddenly wishes he could turn back time. 

Yuri’s right in front of him before he can blink, grabbing Ashe’s chin and drawing close. His breath smells like tea despite the fact that none of them have been able to properly wash their mouths in days, and Ashe is shamefully attracted to the way Yuri’s bright eyes swallow him up, pulling him in as they narrow, but that feeling comes in second to regret as the grip of Yuri’s thumb beneath the jut of his lip begins to ache.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...” Ashe’s words are nothing but incessant babbling, spoken apologetically for all of his overstepping, all of his uncalled curiosity. He swallows thickly and lapses into silence when Yuri doesn’t bother interrupting him. “Yuri?”

Yuri’s glare doesn’t waver. It’s frigid cold and travels deep into Ashe’s chest, so heavy and frozen that Ashe can’t find it in himself to look away. He remains anchored, staring right back into Yuri’s anger until it melts into a familiar simper.

“You and me,” Yuri says in a tone Ashe wasn’t expecting—soft and breathy and sweet-tasting as he leans in close, his smile centimeters from Ashe’s lips. “We could have some fun in here, you know.” 

He doesn’t like this tone of voice, how it opposes the way Yuri’s fingertips dig into his chest as he pushes him down onto the cot. Ashe’s heart beats hard into his throat, words catching on his tongue when Yuri straddles his hips over the bedroll. His long, damp hair brushes along Ashe’s cheek, and he almost betrays himself; entertains the thought that this situation would be pleasurable if not for the way Yuri looks at him in that moment. 

Like he hides ground-sharp teeth beneath that alluring smile of his. Ashe thinks he can understand the savagery of the mockingbird now. 

How something can be so beautiful—and so deadly. 

“You know...” The weight of Yuri’s hips falls against him, steals his breath in one suffocating, unfathomable move. “I could show you one hell of a time.” 

Yuri’s hands slide beneath the clips of Ashe’s coat, popping them open one by one. Ashe is frozen as he slips his hand beneath the folds, senses becoming sharp when it ghosts against the gnarled scar on his chest, body hot and stiff with uncertainty.

“I could do whatever I wanted to and you probably wouldn’t say a word.”

The cool fingers of one hand slip between Ashe’s—“Tie your hands”—and the fingers of the other kiss his lashes, Yuri’s face still visible between them—“blind your eyes.” 

Yuri sighs something skin-raising and sensual.

“Take you into the dark where only I can hear your cries.” Yuri’s eyes are something different, something sinister that makes Ashe shiver as he follows the deceiving curve of a smeared-pink smile. “Make you tell me all your dirty secrets.”

“Or bend you until you break.”

Ashe can’t bring himself to say a word, but the silence surrounding them is deafening. Nothing rouses in the dead of night because the others around him are sound asleep, yet every bump in the darkness is a screech. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and Yuri’s hands—they dig. Dig into his arms and chest, into the arrow-head slices along the expanse of his skin.

In any other instance, Ashe’s heart might’ve jumped into his throat at the thought of Yuri ever looking at him this way. At the thought of being touched by him, whispered to or kissed or thoroughly debauched. Like something out of his rainy-day daydreams. But the feeling burning deep in his chest grasps him with nothing but fear. And worry over Yuri’s subtle implications.

That in this joking, terrifying way of his, he’s telling Ashe exactly what put those marks there. 

“How do you like the idea of being caged, little bird?” Yuri whispers, mouth so close to Ashe’s own that one more word would seal their lips. There’s no deciphering what he means now that Ashe knows the answer. 

“It’s okay,” Ashe breathes. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

Yuri pulls his hands away like he’s just touched fire, sitting back on Ashe’s legs with a faraway look on his face. The hands resting heavy on Ashe’s chest are settled on Yuri’s thighs, no longer touching him or twitching with the indication that Yuri would even want to. Within seconds, Yuri’s rolled off of him and is settled at his side, their shoulders pressed closely together. 

And though Ashe is relieved of that weight, of that tension, he’s overwhelmed with the feeling that he’s missed something. 

When Ashe opens his mouth to speak, Yuri doesn’t look him in the eye, his gaze drawn up to the roof of their tent. It takes him several tries, several moments of forming the right words and questions in his mind before he’s brave enough to even ask them. 

“How did you escape?” 

Yuri continues to stare skyward; doesn’t bat an eye.

“Escape what?”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Ashe says softly.

“That’s not it,” Yuri clips out.

“Then... what is it?”

“I simply don’t tell the truth.”

Yuri rolls his head to look at Ashe one last time. Even now, as the glow of the lantern slowly dims into darkness, he’s incomparably beautiful. Ashe is in love with the way his eyes shine like beacons, wet and red and vulnerable despite the magnitude of the words on his lips.

Ashe holds his breath as if he’s about to be told a secret, and Yuri’s intensity takes it all away.

“ _This_ is my failsafe.”

—0—0—0—

**Harpstring Moon 1186**

Ashe feels more like a knight than he ever has before.

Being appointed a general has given him a greater sense of responsibility, and with it, a feeling of accomplishment where there was once a lack of satisfaction. 

He’s all the better for it; Ashe really feels like he’s making a difference. That he’s stronger, smarter, useful. That he’s becoming the man he’s always wanted to be. He’s no longer silent during meetings, contributing to battles and working hard to restore the monastery’s former glory—and finally being seen for his worth. 

Byleth relies on his input and Dimitri relies on his strength. Instead of feeling beneath Ingrid’s intuition or Dedue’s strength, he prides himself on being their equal. Felix looks at him with respect in that way Ashe has always wanted him to. 

And Yuri considers him a reliable source, actively seeking him out to share intelligence and complimenting his ability to observe. 

Ashe tries not to let _that_ get to his head, of course. The last thing he wants is to read into Yuri’s attention and praise, making it out to be something it’s not. Really, he’s just grateful that Yuri is here, and that he plans to stay.

Ever since he had joined their ranks permanently (something about Abyss being able to wait until they win the war), Ashe was glad to find out that nothing had changed between them. Even after that kiss all those years ago, all of that tension and avoidance in the end, he and Yuri picked up right where they left off. 

More than once, Ashe would have the urge to bring it up, if just to know that Yuri still thought about it. He would let himself entertain the answer he’d like to hear most, but deep down, he knows that long lost memory would stay just that. 

No one’s ever the same as they were five years ago. And though Ashe has long since realized his love for Yuri—realizes it over and over again as if it’s brand new—he can’t really be disappointed that things didn’t turn out a different way. 

Still, he is. That feeling settles far in his depths.

Sometimes he wonders how many times a person can fall in love before they understand they won’t be loved back.

The lack of closure hurts, but it’s something he will one day come to accept. Yuri goes on as if it had never happened; one day Ashe will, too. A single kiss doesn’t hold a candle to a five-year absence.

At least it hadn’t caused a rift.

Still, as a friend, Yuri is great company. And at times like this, when he wants others to share in his cheerful mood, Ashe makes his way down to Abyss to look for him.

He finds him in the Ashen Wolves reformed classroom surrounded by tapestries and maps. Old parchments of smaller territories lie on the floor next to Yuri’s feet, unwound and worn from rolling and unrolling. The books piled around him haven’t been opened in years judging by the amount of dust on their covers, and Ashe brushes a hand over the top of one, coughing into his elbow when a hefty plume billows in the air.

That gets Yuri’s attention, his head inclining toward Ashe, brow raised as he bends over a large map of Fódlan. 

Ashe smiles down at him without apology. “What are you up to?”

“Deciding on our next target,” Yuri lies. His eyes are focused on the forests in the northeast, far from where Byleth expressed they would be in the last meeting. “Professor said it’s my turn to pick the strategy.”

“Always a wise choice.” 

Violet eyes narrow up at him. “What do you want?” 

“You’re touchy today,” Ashe says with a mirthful huff. And when he’s met with nothing but silence, he steps forward, slides his finger along the map until it hits the point Yuri’s glaring at. “This is where I helped you with that sting.”

“So it is.”

Ashe doesn’t say anything back, feeling a shift in Yuri’s mood that drops the temperature of the room. It’s strikingly familiar, the tension he feels; it’s almost the same as that day. It was by complete accident that Ashe stumbled right into Yuri’s rendezvous with the professor. He’d almost gotten them both caught, too. 

In the end, the mission had been successful, but Yuri seemed unfulfilled. And he never did tell Ashe why.

“What are you looking at?” It’s those same words—in that same exasperated tone—Yuri had said to him the very first time they met in Abyss. Those same words he’s said to Ashe countless times on countless occasions, every pointed phrase more playful than the last. Like something he’d say to a friend. 

This feels different. 

It hurts, but Ashe isn’t sure _he’s_ the one that’s hurting. Yuri spits it out defensively, a _leave me alone_ in the form of a question, like he’s afraid that someone might find out what he’s doing if they stick around long enough. 

It’s why Ashe doesn’t back down, why he takes it in stride as his eyes skim the map, marks x-ing familiar territories. “Do you think she’s there?”

Silence, and then: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, bluebird.”

Ashe doesn’t believe him for a second. “That person you were looking for back then, in the woods.”

“We weren’t looking for anyone,” Yuri says, dropping a book on the tabletop. A cloud of dust rises from the fall. “We were taking out the trash.”

“That’s not what you said then,” Ashe argues. “When we finally cleared out the camp, you said ‘she’s not here’.”

When Yuri doesn’t answer, he presses still.

“Who is she?”

A sigh falls from petal-painted lips. Yuri pushes off the desk, turns around and leans back on it instead. Like it’s easier to answer the question if he doesn’t look at Ashe at all. Crossing his arms over his chest, he parts his lips to speak, stopping only when he realizes Ashe has come to his side. 

Yuri gives him a meaningful look before shaking his head, frowning.

“My mother.”

It makes all the sense in the world to Ashe. 

He thinks of his brother and sister, of the way that people would see them as a weakness to exploit on the streets, and knows that Yuri’s mother must’ve been seen the same way. Only, where Ashe had been lucky, Yuri was not. Instead of being able to protect her, he lost her—keeps her a secret to right his wrongs as he searches tirelessly for her. 

For years.

_“I don’t need people.”_

Ashe doesn’t blame him for the way he’s become.

“When this is all over, I’ll help you,” he promises, reaching out for Yuri with a smile. “I’ll help you find her.”

Yuri stares at Ashe’s hand as if it were going to bite him, but the defensive frown on his face melts into a wistful smile, and his words are full of disbelieving laughter. “Now, why would you do that?” 

“Why not? If she’s important to you, then I want to do all I can.”

“I take care of my own problems.”

“But—you don’t _have_ to do it by yourself!” Ashe inhales sharply, but every argument he has to bring up dies on his tongue when Yuri’s expression softens. He drops his shoulders, sighs instead. “You don’t have to. I could be there for you.”

“You want to be there for me?” His voice is gentler, and to Ashe, he almost sounds _tired._ “Of all the things you could be doing during peaceful times, you want to help me look for someone who could be dead in a ditch somewhere?”

“You don’t believe she is.”

“I don’t,” Yuri sighs, eyes flickering up at him. He swiftly changed the subject. “Just do yourself a favor and survive this war. You are my ally and you are my friend, but that’s where it all ends. I have my own battles to fight and I intend to do it alone.”

“Yuri, I just think—”

“What?” Yuri’s tone somewhere between playful and condescending as he steps into Ashe’s personal space—looks up at him with that smile Ashe wishes he didn’t love so much. “Did you think one kiss five years ago meant anything?”

Ashe feels a little taken aback.

The kiss hadn’t been on his mind, not then. Helping Yuri had been his only intention; it hurts that he thinks otherwise. 

“Did it mean anything to you?” He counters.

Yuri, despite being the one asking the question, fails to answer it himself. Even if Ashe doesn’t know how their kiss became a part of the conversation, it doesn’t matter in the face of Yuri’s silence. It tells him everything he needs to know.

That there’s something more to them than just the middle-place. 

And if Ashe was ever worried before, if he was ever scared, this flicker of something between them is something he just can’t ignore.

Ashe can prove that he’s brave right now.

“Did it?” Ashe is unfaltering, his jaw set, brows pinched. He moves in without a second thought, crowds Yuri against his desk and doesn’t bother waiting for an answer.

Just steps forward and gently takes Yuri’s hands, sliding his own up past pale wrists he knows are forever scorched from black magic shackles, and kisses him with all his might.

Yuri’s hands curl around his forearms, and when he kisses back, Ashe knows his bravery was all worth it. 

It’s quick; what was once daring and hard-pressed now soft and yielding. When he pulls away, Yuri looks conflicted—for the first time that Ashe has ever seen. Ashe keeps his hold firm, though his expression softens. He looks down to see Yuri’s hands, fingers wrapped around him in a vice-grip, and brings them into his own—amazed at how they instinctively twine around his knuckles. 

Ashe huffs out a sigh, upset because he’s not so sure if that unspoken answer is good enough.

He looks back up into Yuri’s eyes and gives him a watery smile and a shrug.

“It meant everything to me, you know?”

—0—0—0—

**Verdant Rain Moon 1186**

The final battle is won.

One last blow is struck the moment the first rays of morning sun part the clouds in the sky. Edelgard has fallen, and their comrades spread tired word until it reaches Ashe and his troops in the gardens. Whether they sigh in relief or cry, Ashe doesn’t know—the only thing that reaches him is the overwhelming feeling of knowing it’s _over._

This is the end; there will be no more fighting. 

The world can finally begin to heal.

When his body becomes too heavy to hold vertically, he falls back onto the trimmed grass of the gardens stained red with blood, gloved hands threading into the roots of the flowery beds. For a moment, he thinks a morning shower is falling to the earth, washing away the stench of death, but he realizes right away that it's just the wetness of a few stray tears streaming down his face.

 _Good,_ he thinks.

If it started raining right now, he might just feel guilty.

Guilty that he’d shot the arrow that killed Petra while thinking of all the times he’d gone hunting with her back at the academy. That he’d knocked Ferdinand off his horse when he’d helped Ashe pick roses in the greenhouse one distant, Great Tree Moon day. That he didn’t even blink when Dorothea’s siren-call voice was silenced once and for all. 

That one hurts. She’d saved him many times from his own self-doubt and sadness, just with the sound of her singing voice—a Goddess-given gift if there ever was one. And now he’d never hear it crooning beside him, carried by the acoustics of the cathedral’s soaring walls, ever again. 

But he doesn’t—he doesn’t feel guilty at all. Not like he used to. 

Not with a sun like this shining above him.

Though the memories of old friends are fond, they’d picked their side. And sometimes that means parting ways because you desire different things. And sometimes, to achieve those things, you have to fight for them—even if it costs you your life. Or someone else’s.

And Ashe, like everyone on the battlefield, has something to fight for. 

There’s a rustling beside him and Ashe chances a look. Purple tresses spill into the grasses, the first sign of sunset amongst the morning glories and marigolds. A few stray flower petals become color spots like stars in a lavender sky. Yuri’s lashes open and close, fluttering as his lidded eyes stare upward. Ashe follows his gaze into that warmth for just a second before he’s drawn to Yuri again.

Who knew such beautiful flowers bloomed in Enbarr?

A ray of light shines over them, dries the blood on his skin and warms his cold core. He’s sure it’s a sight, golden and just beyond high-noon, but Ashe’s eyes are drawn to Yuri. Thankful that he’s still there beside him, with just a handful of scars to add to the map his body makes. Yuri’s eyes are focused on the sky, staring dazedly upward until—finally—he smiles. An even better sight, Ashe thinks; a genuine article. 

A sight they must be, too, together here like this. 

There are corpses—corpses everywhere, even in the palace gardens—but they’re there, lying in the beds, basking under the sun and sky.

Ashe reaches through the flowers, carding through the stems until he finds Yuri’s hand. His thin, bare fingers tease Ashe, walk up to his wrist before they slide beneath Ashe’s glove, deep enough for their palms to nearly kiss. The skin-on-skin contact feels like the pulse of a beating heart, the press of Yuri’s hand flush against his is something real and alive. Ashe curls his fingers around the fingertips that can’t quite make it to his own. 

When Yuri turns his head to look at him, he’s smiling, and it’s an image he plans to lock away and keep until it blends together with their future memories and vignettes into nothingness.

“What are you looking at?” Yuri asks softly.

“At every pretty flower,” Ashe says.

—0—0—0—

**Ethereal Moon 1186**

Yuri paints his lips like an artist.

Ashe should be used to seeing him do it by now, coloring the lines in silence every morning like clockwork. The normalcy of it has yet to set in, however; every time he bears witness, Yuri’s morning routine still leaves him in a strange sort of awe. 

He’s quick and skillful with his brush, every long sweep across his lips precise, every soft arch an unstrung bow. Today, Yuri blushes and powders his face, lights up his cheeks with a faint, rose hue in one extra step. And Ashe has seen him without makeup more often than he’d ever dreamed he would, has seen him with it even more, but nothing compares to watching the care Yuri puts into his transformation.

His enhancement, it’s more like; the accessory to his natural beauty.

“It’s amazing that you do that every morning,” Ashe remarks, breaking the comfortable quiet.

“I don’t just wake up like this, contrary to popular belief,” Yuri answers light-heartedly, his mouth curling just so before he dips his brush into the stain once more, eyeing the crystal mirror in his hand as he swipes a swath of color across his pale, pink bottom lip. “It’s more out of habit now than anything.”

“Still.” Ashe looks down at the raiment laid out on the bed Dimitri was kind enough to provide them while they were visiting for his coronation. They’re far nicer than anything he’s ever worn in his life, dyed in deep blues and blacks and embellished in silvers that only shine, impervious to rust and tarnish. It’s proof of how far he’s come, Ashe thinks, how hard he’s worked—how he’s survived it all.

Yuri hums. “A little something extra never hurts.”

How _they_ survived it all, really. Even when it was unbearable, even when he thought they wouldn’t make it to the end, nothing really mattered because Yuri was there with him. 

The two of them walking into the Audience Hall together—side by side and _alive_ —as Dimitri is crowned king, as he ushers in a new era of peace, is all he could’ve ever asked for.

“Does it please you?” 

Ashe lifts his head, huffing through his nose with a smile when he notices that Yuri’s too occupied to look at him. 

“It does,” he says, and Yuri nods, satisfied.

When Ashe pulls on his overcoat, he feels silly. It’s much more grandiose than anything he’s ever worn to battle, and a lot nicer than even his best formal wear given to him by Lonato when he lived in Gaspard. Every inch of it is a luxury he’s never been able to afford, and standing in it now, buttoning up his right side, his only thought is how to look like he belongs in it. 

Yuri’s fairing much better. He’s dressed head-to-toe in elegant silks, exotic golds and purples flowing through its folds like ripples of water across a pond’s surface. It drapes across his body and binds at the waist, hugs his shoulders and flows below his hips; expensive and beautiful; unlike him and simultaneously suited perfectly. 

A kimono, Ashe recalls Constance calling it before shoving it into Yuri’s hands and threatening him with the wrath of House Nuvelle if he showed up in anything other than the outfit she so generously commissioned for him. 

Yuri must’ve taken her seriously if he’s wearing it now. Or maybe he just likes it. Either way, Ashe thinks he should thank her for it someday soon. He’s about as over-dressed as Yuri himself, but it’s obvious that he’s a little dull in comparison. 

Which is perfectly fine with him if he thinks about it, really. It just means he’s lucky; Ashe cherishes that. Just like he cherishes Yuri’s attention to detail, the way his hands push away Ashe’s fumbling ones, fingers deftly fitting clasps, unbuttoning and refastening the many studs along the front of his uniform. 

“You missed one,” he explains, adjusting the royal blue sash hanging over Ashe’s shoulder. 

Ashe smiles down at Yuri, a little embarrassed. “Oh—thank you.”

The look he gets in return is breathtaking as ever, amused down to Yuri’s pretty, curled mouth. He really is radiant, Ashe thinks. Up close and personal, he’s a vision. The stain on his mouth is deep in color, feathering out into a lighter pastel as it bleeds toward the line of his lips. Ashe found that he’d never quite admired that glossy sheen across them until Yuri started painting them red. His eyes are dusted with a coppery-gold powder, lustrous and satiny and reminiscent of the gilded statues still standing proudly within Garreg Mach’s cathedral. 

And just as beautiful as the first time he saw them—maybe even more. 

This part of him, Ashe feels, is a polished-sharp knife. One that makes home in his chest with every smile, cuts him deep with every blink.

Yuri’s eyes flicker up at him, all smoldering allure and something searingly painful. “What are _you_ looking at?”

“Your makeup is lovely.” Ashe stares at Yuri’s mouth as he wets his own, mesmerized suddenly by the amused curve of his smile, embarrassed when he gazes at those gold-curtained eyes and sees their laughter. “What?”

Yuri answers him with hands reaching for his shoulders and lips slanting into his. Ashe’s hands find his waist, pulling him close as Yuri drags him down, foot unapologetically stepping atop his own to make up for the height. Ashe’s fingertips slide along soft fabric and up into purple hair, afraid that if he doesn’t have some semblance of control, he’ll be swallowed whole. Yuri’s mouth has all the intensity of someone having their last—deep and biting. 

And surely, surely, makeup-ruining. 

When they part, Ashe breathes deep, watches Yuri as he smiles that smirk of his. Ashe presses his lips together, the glossy texture of lipstick between them filling the gaps lacking color. Yuri’s face is a mess, but it doesn’t seem like he notices, doesn’t seem like he cares as his thumb slides along Ashe’ jaw, sweeps beneath the curve of his mouth. 

“Seeing your lips shine like this, I think I understand the appeal,” Yuri murmurs.

Ashe doesn’t tell him that the kiss has ruined his masterpiece. That his hands have mussed his perfectly styled hair. 

He simply dips down, joins their mouths again and again—and lets Yuri paint his lips instead.

—0—0—0—

**Garland Moon ???**

Ashe doesn’t know how long they’ve been traveling for.

It’s difficult to keep track when they spend so many days off the grid. The last Ashe had checked was when he and Yuri had stopped at an inn in Duscur after visiting Dedue—it was smack-dab in the middle of Garland Moon and they’d stayed longer than necessary for the yearly flower festival. Yuri had seemed especially keen on staying for a few nights, intent on partaking in most of Dedue’s suggested events. 

It was unexpected, seeing Yuri so lively and invested, but the time they spent in Duscur together were some of the most memorable days of Ashe’s life.

Ashe had helped Dedue make a few local dishes and during his down time, he braided together a garland for Yuri that had fallen apart not two seconds after he’d put it on the last day they were there. Yuri had been surrounded by giggling Duscur children then, many of them orphans that took to surrounding him when he began telling old stories. They poked fun at him for the rest of the day, and Ashe was only a little disappointed that the rest of his attempts turned out as bad as the first.

But then Yuri had smiled so prettily at him that Ashe found his lost crown of love-confessing blooms to mean little in comparison.

_“Don’t start sulking. I don’t stick around for the flowers.”_

Ashe pulls a hand through his hair as he steps out of his tent, smiling at the memory as he looks up at the sky. 

They’re in Leicester this moon. 

The world is bright here; so much brighter than he’d ever imagined, than those days he and his class had been traveling for battle. Ashe likes it here, and he almost wishes he and Yuri could stay, but responsibilities elsewhere remind him of his priorities; he should really be getting back to Faerghus to check on his brother and sister. 

There had only been enough time between long stretches of wilderness to send them a letter twice since he and Yuri departed half a year ago. And the last time he’d checked, his birthday had passed a fortnight before, and thus, as did theirs. It’s been a while since then, and he’s long overdue for a visit.

He’s sure they miss Yuri, too. They’re just as fond of him as Ashe is.

Trying not to bask in the sun too much, Ashe’s feet walk him over to a pot full of stew simmering hot over the fire, just waiting to be given a finishing touch and a quick stir before it’s ready to eat. He takes his time to get everything just right. If he’s learned anything from Dedue over the years, it’s that a good day begins with a good meal. 

Not that good things are hard to come by now that the war is over. 

Everything is peaceful. 

_Everything_ is good.

Ashe isn’t sure what higher being he could possibly thank for something as simple as cooking over a fire in the forest without the fear of the Empire gaining footing over them looming in the shadows. 

As simple as being able to pick a spot far and wide across the maps to travel to and visit friends without worrying about borders and grudges and differences in belief.

Or watching Yuri do something as domestic as washing a set of clothes that had gotten muddied in a skirmish with his bangs pulled back—thanks to a hairpin he’d plucked right from Ashe’s head earlier that day. 

Or being in love and being loved back.

Whether it be Seiros or Sothis, he is unsure, but needless to say, he enjoys his new life humbly.

Ashe’s eyes linger on Yuri’s pale back as he kneels over the edge of the stream, catching sight of scars and bruises they’ve both long-since made peace with. 

Most of the time, he tries not to let them distract him, but there are days when he thinks back to a shared tent, mint-tea-breath, and the glow of an oil lamp.

Yuri turns to grab for one of the coats atop his pile when he notices he’s being stared at, and Ashe prepares for a smart, albeit familiar remark to be thrown his way. He’s pleasantly caught off guard when Yuri’s brows frown cutely instead, and the softest, most genuine smile Ashe has ever seen lights up his face before he returns to his work.

Ashe’s face splits into a grin, grabbing for the wood spoon lying across the lip of his pot. 

“This is a first,” he comments offhandedly, giving the stew a stir.

“What is?”

Ashe hums. “Well, whenever you catch me staring, you usually ask me what I’m looking at.”

Yuri humors him then, peeks up from Ashe’s gloves with a raised brow and a standoffish look that dissolves as he speaks. “What are you looking at?”

Ashe can’t help but smile until his face refuses to split any wider, the shine in Yuri’s eyes creating a buzzing vibration beneath his skin.

“Are you going to answer me?” Yuri sets the gloves aside as he stands, comes closer until he’s invaded Ashe’s personal space and all of his senses. Ashe laughs under his breath when dripping hands splay along his sides, successfully wetting through his tunic. 

When the excitement dies down, he gets a perfect view of Yuri’s pretty face, lidded eyes stirring up all the arrowhead scars lazily patched up in Ashe’s chest. 

“Ask me again,” he breathes, and Yuri leans into his chest with a playful smile.

“What are you looking at?” Yuri asks, whisper-soft and breathy. 

Ashe smiles wide, delighted to answer.

“You.” 

**Author's Note:**

> “I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?” ―Haruki Murakami
> 
>   
> [twitter.](https://twitter.com/birdsandivory)  
> [retweet.](https://twitter.com/birdsandivory/status/1359635822887264258)  
> [oliver's art.](https://twitter.com/nikobynight/status/1359623177333207040)  
> [fe3h thread.](https://twitter.com/birdsandivory/status/1249699761286000643)


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